“Despite what we believe, despite what we think, we're a 4-6 team,” tight end Antonio Gates said. “And when I think about every game we lost this season, we made errors, and we weren't good enough to overcome them. Now, we understand as a team that we're just not that caliber of a team that can make certain mistakes and try to overcome them.”

That we knew that about them pretty much from the season’s start, and that most of them even knew so somewhere in the most honest depths, does not make what happened Sunday much more palatable.

There had until this game been at least the consolation of them being a largely inexperienced team that could cling to its mantra of getting better. Not Sunday. They played their worst game.

“Too many mistakes … start to finish to beat a team in the NFL,” Mike McCoy said. “We hurt ourselves way too much, one time after another.”

A second-quarter roughing the passer penalty by Corey Liuget negated a Chargers fumble recovery at the 1-yard line in the second quarter, and the Dolphins got in the end zone two plays later. In all, the Chargers committed 10 penalties, including four for being offside and one neutral zone infraction. They also missed about that many tackles, three of them on a 39-yard catch-and-run to the end zone by tight end Charles Clay in the third quarter that would give the Dolphins a 17-10 lead.

The Chargers offense totaled 435 yards, the sixth time this season they have topped 425 yards. But they continued to let down in the red zone, scoring on their first such trip but settling for field goals on their other two times inside the Miami 20. Each of their past five losses (out of six total) could have been avoided by being better in the red zone.

The Chargers started the season without a complete team and have suffered attrition by injury along the way. It is young, at times overwhelmed.

Sunday was the Chargers’ fifth loss (of six total) by one score. That they must learn to win is an understatement and is also an explanation that has lost its novelty.

“Till we overcome those situations and fight through them when it’s tough and when it’s our time to go win the game,” safety Eric Weddle said. “… We had opportunities. They outplayed us in the end. They outplayed us in the situations you need to win the game.”